Three things I said I'd never do again:
1. Work at a startup company.
2. Have a dayjob.
3. Tap dance.

One out of three ain't bad, I guess.

Today is my first day as Senior Designer of Technorati. Yes, it's a startup company. Yes, it's a dayjob. No, I'm not tap dancing for them. I haven't done that since grade school, and frankly, the less said about it the better.

» Jon Stewart and Woody Harrelson: High or just giddy? I'd put money on high.

» Shorties Wathcin' Shorties is just brilliant: Take the best bits of standup comedians and put it to flash-style animation. Funny. And you don't have to watch some guy pacing around a stage.

» Drawn Together, another animated show on Comedy Central, is a faux reality show with cartoon characters borrowed from many genres. Great in-jokes for cartoon geeks like me, and plenty of bawdy humor for everyone else.

I could not be prouder of how well Fray Day 8 San Francisco went. The stories were fantastic, whether they were from a featured performer or open mic participant, the venue was beautiful, the sound was great (we may even be able to make a CD out of the recording this year), the music was incredible (Goh was perfect and Kid Beyond had everyone on their feet), and I got to tell a little two-part story of my own. We started at 8pm sharp and ended promptly at 11pm.

One of the problems anyone who runs an open mic has is getting people to stick to the time limits. In Fray, that means 10 minutes for the featured performers and 5 for the open mic. In past years, I wasn't always able to cut someone off when I should have. I mean, I got into this because I like hearing people's stories. So stopping them in the middle is hard.

But this year we introduced the Boa of Shame - a red boa that I threatened to put on the shoulders of anyone who went over their time limit. And I never got to use it! The mere threat of the Boa of Shame was enough to keep everyone in their time limit.

I especially wanna thank Dinah Sanders, who was really my rock this year. She did just as much to make Fray Day 8 SF a reality as I did. And I couldn't have done it without her. Thanks also to Jay Allen, Jish Mukerji, Min Jung Kim, and Shannon Hale, who all showed up early and helped get what needed to get done, done. Having a team of volunteers like this makes an event like this work, and work well.

Fray Day 8 San Francisco is this Saturday night at the Swedish American Hall! There'll be music by Goh Nakamura and Kid Beyond, as well as stories from Jack Boulware, Kevin Smokler, Beth Lisick, Kirk Read, and of course the open mic! Don't miss it!

I'm only posting because I can't stand to look at "Election Depression" on the homepage of Powazek.com anymore. So, hey, lookee there! All Powazek photo calendars on sale! Only $17.99 through November 15. Act now. Operators are standing by.

Song of the day: God's Away On Business, Tom Waits. "There's a leak, there's a leak in the boiler room. The poor, the lame, the blind. Who are the ones that we kept in charge? Killers, thieves and lawyers."

C-SPAN is trying to make me feel better. After the Kerry concession broadcast, they showed Bush Sr.'s concession speech from 1996, then Clinton's acceptance. Thanks, C-SPAN.

The sky is all thunder and lightning here in San Francisco. The Gods are angry, too.

Fuck the "don't mourn, organize" noise. Mourn AND organize. Be sad AND angry. Both are great creative fuel.

I remember when I first became aware of John Kerry. It was during the Democratic primaries when the field was crowded with hopeful candidates. I was watching the debates on CNN and I pointed at him, tapping my finger on the hollow cathode ray tube of my television set as he was droning on in his eternal monotone, my finger touching his broadcasted wrinkles.

"Anyone," I said, "but that one."

The democrats were damaged by Clinton. He'd embarrassed us in the eyes of the world with a blue dress and a curvy intern. And Gore was just laughable, even before he lost the Electoral College in 2000. So I thought we needed someone to reinvigorate us. Someone young and energetic. Not this walking corpse, this reanimated High School Principal, this Frankenstein without the bolts.

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Working the web since 1995, Derek Powazek is the creator of many award-winning websites, a couple of which still exist. Derek is the cofounder of JPG Magazine and the CCO of 8020 Publishing. Derek lives in San Francisco with his wife, two nutty Chihuahuas, a grumpy cat, and a house full of plants named Fred. More »